


Keith & Krolia

by Callaeidae3



Series: KWmonth (Keithtober x Whumptober) [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Space Whales, kwmonth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-07 08:26:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16404830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callaeidae3/pseuds/Callaeidae3
Summary: KWmonth prompts: Space Whale/Training/"I guess I have some walls up." (Season 6) and Leadership/Krolia (Post-season 6)Keith struggles with the concept of family and Krolia has to relearn how to be a mother.





	1. Space Whale

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to start writing a space whale fic soon! It'll be called 'Begin Again', and will be along the lines of the introspection and re-establishing of mother-son relationship we see here in these prompt fics :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith struggles accepting Krolia as family and Krolia soon learns why.

"I'm sure you still have questions," Krolia murmurs.

Keith shrugs. He doesn't answer, just stares into the flames and concentrates on the burning of the air against skin.

"Keith?"

He narrows his eyes. It doesn't sit right, Krolia calling him by his name in a tone that implies she's familiar with it. She's his mother, sure, but Keith's unfamiliar with that very concept.

"Not now," he says curtly.

Krolia turns the skewer of meat she's roasting and doesn't press anymore.

There aren't any questions left to ask. Keith understands why she left. He gets why it was imperative she leave Earth - leave him, and his Dad - to stop any more scouts finding trace of the Blue Lion. He's seen enough from the visions to know a bit about the kind of person his mother is.

But that doesn't undo any of the hurt her absence caused him.

Keith doesn't have the heart to tell her he's been an orphan for the last twelve years. That his Dad's not coming home. Ever. That the human she fell in love with and conceived him with is no longer alive.

He doesn't say anything but she finds out that same night anyway.

 

Keith comes awake in the middle of the night. The fire's still burning. At his back, the cosmic wolf stirs.

Something woke him.

He knows by the nausea settling in his belly that it was another vision. All of them have been unsettling, especially the one he saw about Shiro with that strange look in his eyes... but this was a different kind of vision: it was a memory.

A memory, and one that Keith tries to avoid thinking about.

He didn't see the vision but he knows the memory this kind of nausea is associated with. The only time he's felt exactly like this was twelve years ago, standing in front of his father's grave for the first time. The fact that it had been autumn hadn't helped, what with the nostalgic smell of decaying leaves lying in heaps all around the cemetery.

No one had ever understood why he hated autumn so much, but that was because they couldn't taste grief in the air like he could. One time one of the foster kids at the group home decided it would be a good idea to bury Keith in a pile of fallen oak leaves. They'd thought his thrashing had been him enjoying playing around in the leaves and so they had gathered even more and dumped them over him.

Keith swallows hard at the memory. At that age, he hadn't understood what a panic attack was and so he'd legitimately thought he was going suffocate to death - even though there was technically still oxygen getting into his lungs. The kid who'd thrown the leaves over him quickly stopped laughing when he stopped moving. But then they'd just left him there while they ran to get help...

A shadow falls over him. The cosmic wolf pup shifts a little. Keith stays lying as he is, in his side with an arm bent beneath his head. The shadow hesitates a moment before crouching down beside him and laying a hand of his shoulder.

"Keith," Krolia whispers. "I'm sorry."

Her voice dips, thickening. A noise like a suppressed sob escapes her. Keith curls in on himself before he ends up doing the same.

They don't speak of what Keith knows Krolia saw in that vision. Neither of them get much sleep, and Krolia seems reluctant to be away from him for more than an approximate hour. Keith avoids eye contact, already knowing what emotions he'll see on her face if he looks and being too raw from being forced to relive those emotions to cope with it.

The wolf notices the change in their body language straight away. He doesn't teleport long distances when out hunting and gathering with Keith anymore and at mealtimes, though he still hovers near Krolia in the hope she'll share some of her food like her son does, he doesn't bother her so much for it.

A day and a half later, Keith can't keep down the fresh waves of grief any longer. The nausea doesn't leave him until he's thrown up what's left in his stomach of last night's and this morning's food, and even then not until he finally relents on letting Krolia come near enough to hug him.

It's painful. Kolivan's always telling him not to let his emotions get in the way and now Keith doesn't know how to release them. The only means he had to vent before was with the rush of adrenaline that came with missions or training. And so his sobs are loud and full of hiccups, and his hands are shaking so bad he has to hold them tight against his breastplate.

Krolia's faring a little better, but it's hard to tell since she keeps her head bowed and her face hidden in his hair.

They mourn together and the cosmic wolf almost looks relieved. Keith forgives and Krolia laments, and for the first time in many, many years the two of them regain the feel of family.

That night is the first time Keith ever calls his Mum.

 

 


	2. Training

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An accident happens during a sparring session and the wolf teaches Krolia how to be a Mum.

Dread pools in Krolia's stomach.   
  
He's not moving.   
  
She bends over him to get a better look at his face. His eyes are closed, mouth slack, and there's a slightly inflamed mark on the side of his head where Krolia's elbow guard connected with his temple.   
  
"Keith?"   
  
The young wolf, who'd been sitting in front of the cave watching them spar, materialises beside them. It looks down at Keith, back up at Krolia and then leans down to nudge Keith's head with it's nose. When that doesn't wake him, it licks his face all over.   
  
Keith splutters. Krolia breathes a sigh of relief.   
  
Pushing the wolf away, Keith rolls onto his back. He opens his eyes but just as quickly screws them shut. With a groan, he rolls back onto his side and cradles his head in his hands.   
  
Krolia kneels down beside him and tentatively lays a hand on his shoulder.   
  
"Sorry," she says.   
  
Keith's only response is a pained grunt.   
  
The wolf stares at Keith for a while before tilting it's head. It's gaze flicks up to Krolia, questioning.   
  
In practice, Krolia knows how to deal with a concussion. What she doesn't know, however, is how to care for her son when he has one.   
  
They're already walking a tight rope re-establishing their mostly non-existent mother-son relationship. And now, during their first sparring session, Keith took a blow that knocked him out.   
  
She should've been more careful. Humans are more fragile than Galra. Keith may be an excellent fighter, but that doesn't make him any less prone to injury. And since they don't know how long they will be on this mission for...   
  
"Krolia, stop worrying. I'm fine."   
  
She blinks, startled. Keith's not even looking at her; he's still facing the other way, eyes squeezed shut in a grimace.   
  
"How did you...?"   
  
"The wolf told me."   
  
Krolia frowns. "The wolf?"   
  
She looks between the two of them, puzzled. But Keith, sensing her inability to understand their mysterious communication, just waves a hand in the air.   
  
Krolia wants to help him up, but from what she's seen from his body language over the last week, Keith's somewhat touch-adverse. He's also insistent that he can handle things on his own, that he doesn't need help - that he's fine.   
  
It's like he has trouble trusting people to be there to support him when he needs it -   
  
_Oh_. And Krolia wonders why.   
  
Keith gets up slowly, although he doesn't get further than bracing himself on his hands and knees before he's screwing his eyes shut again. He mutters something that sounds like a curse word.   
  
A nudge against her arm. Krolia glances down to see the wolf pushing her arm forwards, towards Keith.   
  
She frowns.  _What...?_  
  
Dropping her arm, the wolf gently takes her hand in its jaws and guides it again in Keith's direction.   
  
_You're right, I should help him._  
  
Krolia has no idea what she's doing. She's forgotten how to comfort and she's forgotten how humans go about helping each other.   
  
But then she remembers what her husband did for her when he pried open the wreckage of her ship and she makes the connection between that action and the one the wolf is encouraging her to do.   
  
_Give him a hand._  
  
"Keith."   
  
He opens his eyes and glances at the hand she has extended beside him. He stares at it for several tics, as though trying to work out what it means, then he looks up at Krolia's expression.   
  
Krolia doesn't know what it is he reads there. Their eyes are only locked for three or four tics, but she can feel him weighing up the choice of accepting help over struggling on his own to get to his feet.   
  
Averting his gaze, Keith accepts her hand.   
  
Krolia pulls him up, steadying him with an arm around his back. Keith's eyes don't stray from a spot on the ground in front of his feet, but his shoulders tense at the touch. He looks as though he'd have shrugged off her arm had it not been for his dizziness.   
  
"Let's go sit down," Krolia says. "I'll see if we can do anything for your head."   
  
Keith makes the mistake of nodding. He winces and stumbles sideways, into Krolia and into what is essentially a hug.   
  
Instinctively, Krolia goes to pull out of it, but then she notices the blur of teleporting cosmic wolf flashing back to the cave and reconsiders. Before Keith can be the one to withdraw, Krolia pulls his arm over her shoulders and starts the slow walk after the wolf.   
  
Keith exhales slowly. "Thanks."

Unable to find the appropriate phrase to reply with, Krolia simply hums.   
  
"I'm sorry for knocking you out," she says instead.   
  
Keith frowns. "No, it's my fault - I should've seen it coming."   
  
Krolia doesn't understand how, though. He'd just feinted to the side and dropped into a lunge when Krolia's reflexes took over and she'd elbowed him in the head. There's no way he could've anticipated that move unless he knew her well.   
  
...unless he knew her - his own mother - well.

She helps Keith over to his usual sleeping spot, on the opposite side of the cave to hers, and gently eases him down. Keith sinks down on his side, propped up by an elbow, then gives in and lies down completely.   
  
He brings a hand to the swelling on his temple. "This space whale isn't cold enough for ice at all, is it?"   
  
"Maybe in the upper reaches," Krolia says,  "but I'm not certain there'd be much atmosphere up there."   
  
"Don't worry about it, then. I'll be fine without it."   
  
Krolia raises an eyebrow. Obviously he's not fine, but what is she meant to say and do in these situations? Since they've only been in the whale just over a movement, they haven't had much a chance to find which plants have medicinal properties to them, and so they have nothing in their small storage that could ease Keith's pain.   
  
Perhaps if she'd had experience with these kinds of situations, she'd be able to help him in some other way, but the thing is...she doesn't even know how to be a mother.   
  
Krolia guesses it's something she's going to have to learn, and now would be a good time to start.   
  
  


 

 


	3. "I guess I have some walls up."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Krolia are caught in a quantum abyss vision - of Keith's vlog.

_"I don't know why I'm that way. Maybe I'm naturally untrusting because my Mum left me and so, instead of accepting people into my life, I push them away before they reject me?"_

_"I guess I have some walls up..."_

There’s nothing but silence in the cave. Keith holds his breath.

Krolia’s staring at the wall, eyes wide. She’s rock-still. The wolf trots over to where she’s kneeling beside Keith, but it’s like she doesn’t even notice its there.

Then she turns her gaze down to Keith.

The pain in his head flares. His throat constricts. He’s far too vulnerable, lying here. Adrenaline’s already speeding through his veins and he feels the blood drain from his face, and all of a sudden he just  _can’t -_

Krolia plants a hand on his chest.

A warning. He just took a bad hit to the head; he’s in no condition to be moving around. Less than a minute ago he had to get Krolia to help him back to the cave because he couldn’t walk in a straight line, let alone pick himself up off the ground.

_But that vision…_

Their eyes never leave each other. Both of them are wary, assessing. Afraid.

Keith’s heart beats wildly, waiting – waiting for Krolia’s anger to burn a hole through his gut, her bitter disappointment that her son would blame her for his problems with social interaction. He’s never been good at reading expressions and it scares him that can’t decipher where the intensity of Krolia’s stare is coming from.

But in the end it's Krolia who needs out first. She swallows hard, nostrils flaring, then withdraws her hand, stands and walks out of the cave, ducking out of sight just by the entrance.

The wolf stares after her, worried. Keith can gauge by the wolf's reactions that Krolia's not mad at him, nor is she disappointed in him for saying the things he said during his vlog.

She's just blaming herself.

Keith lets that sink in.

He props himself up on his elbows, wincing. “Krolia?”

The shadow outside the cave wavers. It slips a little further to the side. Keith’s brow furrows. He exchanges a glance with the wolf.

Clearing his throat and gathering his courage, Keith calls, “Mum?”

A noise that sounds suspiciously close to a sob.

_Screw this concussion._

Bracing his hands on the cave wall, Keith hauls himself to his feet and staggers over to the entrance. Krolia apparently doesn’t hear him coming, flinching when his shadow falls across the ground beside hers. Keith’s head is spinning and it’s making him nauseous, but seeing that broken expression on Krolia’s face…

He doesn’t have the words. He hasn’t had any experience in these kinds of situations so he has no idea what he’s doing, but something in Keith’s heart decides for him what to do.

Throwing all second thoughts to the wind, he wraps his arms around his mother.

Krolia presses her hand over her mouth a little more. Keith holds her a little tighter.

It’s strange, in a weird and a not-weird way, how familiar she is. He once knew her, Keith realises, it was just that his mind was too undeveloped to remember. It’s strange how the width of their shoulders match, but at the same time it’s not. It’s uncanny how much she looks like him – or rather, how much he looks like her…

It’s strange to have a mother.

Keith’s still not sure how he’s supposed to feel about it – how he  _wants_ to feel about it. If there’s one thing he’s certain about though, it’s that Krolia’s most likely feeling the same way. He’s willing to give it a shot, re-establishing a mother-son relationship that they never really had. Keith just has absolutely no idea how to go about it. At all. Maybe he –

Krolia pulls her arms free of the hug. Keith tenses, about to hastily pull away from her when she returns the embrace and draws him close.

It’s awkward. Even without armour, it would’ve been. The pain in Keith’s head is only getting worse, but he’s scared that if he lets go now he’s not going to get another chance. He barely knows her, but there’s a sickening twist in his gut at the thought of Krolia leaving him.

And the truth, as he’s starting to realise, is that he doesn’t want that.

_I’m letting my guard down,_ Keith thinks.  _I’m accepting her._

The other thoughts are still there, though.

_What if she decides you’re not worth it?_

_What if something happens to her on this mission?_

_Remember what happened with Shiro? And Voltron? And your mother –_

His mother is here. She left him so that they could meet again. She left because she loved him so much that she took it upon herself to protect him as best she could from the other side of the universe.  

Krolia’s arms around him are enough to say that ‘loved’ was never past tense. It’s always been present.

 

 


	4. Leadership

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the end of Season 6, Keith's exhaustion catches up to him and he learns again what it means to be leader of Voltron.

"We're going home."

For the initial few months out in space, going back to Earth hadn't been on Keith's list of things to look forward to. He'd been still recovering from the year of isolation he spent out in the desert, so the thought of going back there, back to that loneliness and hopelessness and depression had been too unbearable to think about, let alone look forward to.

Now the future doesn't look so bleak though, and if there is one thing he misses besides the family he's just recently been reunited with, it's Earth.

They've just got to get there first.

Krolia walks over to him and rests a hand on his shoulder. "Keith. Let's get Shiro back into the pod."

It takes a moment longer than it should for his brain to process her words.

"Right," he says. "Yeah, that's a good idea."

His tone is off. Keith hears it through the ringing in his ears and the others hear it clear as day. Lance watches him warily.

"You good?" he asks.

Keith nods. "I'm fine."

Lance raises an eyebrow but says nothing.

He's not fine, not really. He's been through hell: fighting Shiro's clone and trying to stay alive; crashing into falling platforms, the Black Lion and then the pilot's seat; pushing himself and Black to the limits to get back to the team on time; and then fighting Lotor and having to stay alert while they all repaired the damage the aftermath of that fight did. Put simply, Keith needs to rest - urgently. His body's not going to be able to hold out much longer.

_I just need to get Shiro back to the pod in Black, then talk to the team to decide what we're going to do from here and then...._

It's not much more to do, yet as he crouches down to help Krolia lift Shiro, Keith feels the blood drain from his face.

He sucks in a breath.  _I'm fine. Come on, just a little bit longer._

It's when he stands up that he realises he's not going to make it that 'little bit longer'.

Krolia sees it. Her eyes widen a fraction but then her entire face blurs and she's telling him to set Shiro back down quick -

Strong arms around his shoulders. A whirl if blue and white catches Shiro before Keith loses his grip on him. Someone shouts his name.

Lance is talking to him, asking him to relinquish his hold on Shiro. He does.

"It's alright, Keith. I've got you."

Allura. She lowers him to the ground and Keith realises his legs aren't holding him up anymore - he's not sure when that happened, but it obviously did. It's a good thing Allura was nearby, then.

The dizziness eases a little once he's lying in his back. Keith closes his eyes, exhales slowly. There's movement going on around him but everyone sounds a good distance away so he lets himself drift.

At some point, Krolia and Hunk remove his armour and his boots. He hears Hunk comment on something about not looking so good.

A tap on the collarbone. "Hey man, you with us?"

Keith groans in what was supposed to be words.

"That's good," Hunk says. "I'm going to sit you up now, okay? You need to drink some water. Well, it's space juice, but it's close enough. Think you can do that or do you feel like you need to puke first?"

The honest answer is the latter, but Keith hopes a bit more hydration will settle his stomach so he nods.

"Uh..which one?"

"Can you help me up?" he whispers.

Hunk slips a hand under his back and pulls him into a lean against himself. Keith's stomach roils.

"Woah, woah. Keith."

He swallows hard, mouth watering.

"Oh no."

There's nothing to it, just dry-wretching. Krolia murmurs something and gathers his hair in her hands, getting it out of his face. Hunk holds him steady.

A voice from further away. "Quiznak! Is he okay?"

"What does it look like, Coran?" Krolia retorts

There's a stunned silence and then Pidge and Lance start laughing. Hunk joins in. Keith's too busy to look at his mother's expression to see why, but even he can't help but grin.

Pidge snorts. "You two are definitely related."

Krolia ignores them. "You think you can hold down any water?" she asks.

"I can try," Keith says weakly.

He's shaking when she hands him a pouch, but Hunk helps sit upright long enough to drink half of it.

Romelle appears with a pillow in her arms. "I wasn't sure how long you were going to rest out here so I brought this."

Keith blinks. "Oh, I..."

"We'd probably be best to get him inside the Black Lion," Krolia says. "Thank you though, Romelle."

"We should...probably get moving, too." Keith tries not to be sick again at the thought of having to keep going. "Earth's a long way away..."

"Keith, you need to rest first. That's the first priority right now."

Hunk makes him lie back down as if to prove a point. Keith can't argue.

"I just don't want to slow us down," he murmurs. "I can push through this."

Krolia grunts. "Say what you like, but you and I both know you can't." She pauses, eyes flashing. "Is this because you think everyone expects you to be a good leader?"

Keith gulps. Krolia knows exactly where he's coming from. Two years of bonding time on a space whale would do that, wouldn't it?

"Leadership's not just about the ability to lead, Keith," she says. "It's also about the ability of the team team to support each other. The leader is simply the one who evaluates how best the team can support each other in a given situation." She nods at him. "And that includes supporting you."

It's a strange concept. No one has ever been there for him beside Shiro. Keith's always been expected to deal with things himself, like the news of what happened with the Kerberos mission.

The concept of people wanting to support him is even stranger. Bewildering, even.

Keith glances between his mother and Hunk, Pidge and Lance who have come to stand beside Romelle, and Coran who's hovering a couple of metres behind them. Allura must be taking care of Shiro.

A team, working together like family. It doesn't matter who's leader and who's not. There's no heirachy here - this isn't the Garrison, or the Blade of Marmora.

This is Voltron, and Voltron are found family.

 

 


	5. Krolia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set after Prompt 18: Leadership, Krolia realises one of the reasons why Keith has difficulty trusting others to support him.

Krolia frowns. "No wonder you didn't want to come out when we were packing things into the Lions."

She rubs the antiinflammatory cream over a particularly nasty bruise and Keith winces. The dim lighting of the Black Lion's interior and the contrast of Keith's pale skin and the black of his hair only serve to make it look worse than it is.

The bruise spans across the back of Keith's neck in a dark line. It's discoloured in the centre, at the base of the neck, an injury that could've been prevented had Keith been wearing a helmet at the time the hurt happened - which, obviously, he hadn't been. She comments as much.

"It got knocked off during the fight," Keith murmurs. "Don't even remember getting hit there, though. Must've happened when Black caught us."

Krolia catches the stuff tone to his words and leans forward to raise an eyebrow at him.

"'Knocked off'? It's Paladin armour, Keith," she says. "It's not meant to come off that easily."

Keith keeps his gaze fixed in front of him.

"It was the clone, am I right?"

He narrows his eyes. Krolia pokes the bruise on the underside of his jaw and he yelps.

"You're lucky you weren't knocked out. He would've finished you off."

Keith scowls. "What's your point?"

"My point is that you're hurt and you need to take the necessary time to recover. You'll only wear yourself out if you don't."

"Mum, I'm fi-"

"You are not fine."

"I can handle it."

"Mentally yes, but your body can't. Remind me again why you collapsed earlier?"

She moves onto a mottled bruise in his lower back. Keith flinches at the touch, still scowling.

Krolia hums. "I know you hate being told to rest. I know you're frustrated and you feel like you're letting the team down, but you're not, okay? Leader or not, you're not letting the team down."

"I did last time."

Krolia pauses in rubbing in the ointment. "How so?"

Keith's shoulders slump forward.

"Keith?"

"Because I wasn't good enough," he grits out.

The bitter edge to his words, the frustration in his tone, the tension in his shoulders and that glare he uses when he's in the defensive...

Keith's afraid, Krolia realises.

"The Black Lion doesn't think so," she says. "Shiro doesn't think so. I don't, and I really don't think the others do either."

"You weren't there. You didn't see - "

"Keith."

Krolia screws the lid back on the ointment container. She wipes her hand on a cloth and then pats him on the shoulder. Keith turns his head to look at her.

"You're exhausted," Krolia murmurs. "Now isn't the time to go exhausting yourself further by overthinking these things. Lie down and rest. Let the team support you."

There are years worth of hurt in Keith's eyes - betrayal, even - that Krolia only understands a part of. It hurts to see him like this, every one of his walls down due to the sheer exhaustion he's dealing with, vulnerable...and at the root of it, scared.

Scared that they'll think he's not good enough to lead.

Scared that they'll replace him.

Or reject him.

Or leave.

Krolia's not eligible to say that she's not part of the reason why.

Eventually Keith relents, his earlier burning out getting the better of him. He heaves a sigh, head bowed.

"Fine," he says, grabbing a clean shirt and pulling it on. "Just wake me if something comes up. Please?"

Krolia nods. She gets up from her seat on the bed to let Keith crawl under the covers. He does so with a resigned sigh.  
The colour drains from his face with the movement, but it starts returning a couple of dobashes after lying down.

Krolia pulls the blankets further up over his shoulders and then leaves the room to let him sleep.

  
Keith's mood is better when he wakes, but Krolia still keeps a close eye on him. The bruises are healing well and the stiffness seems to be leaving his muscles as the day progresses, but he's still dealing with a fatigue he refuses to acknowledge.

It's not just Krolia who's concerned.

"You should get some rest, Keith," Pidge says, frowning. "You look tired."

Hunk nods. "Yeah, man. We're not going anywhere anytime soon."

"I'm fine," Keith murmurs, staring at Shiro's pod.

Allura and Lance exchange a worried look.

"Uh, Keith?" Lance says. "No offense, but you really don't look so good. Better than yesterday, yes, but..."

But since they're in the middle of discussing their options of where to from here, Keith objects.

Krolia knows where this is coming from. They spent enough time together on the space whale and emmersed in the visions they saw that she's come to be able to read her son's reactions.

This, like yesterday, is coming from a place of fear.

In Keith's eyes, they're telling him he's of not much use right now, tired as he is. If they don't mind if he's not here for the meeting, then it must mean he's not necessary. And if he's not necessary, then he'll be shoved aside.

Discarded. Rejected.

There's trauma associated with that. It's not something Keith can simply rule out as anxiety and move in with his life, and so, even after two years and a few pheobs of being apart from the Paladins, Keith still fears being rejected by them.

So Krolia doesn't say anything, despite the others' insisting. Keith needs to feel a part of this team again. He needs to be able to believe he's a part of it, and if being here for this discussion is one of the things it'll take to convince him, then she reasons they ought to let him be.

But it soon becomes clear that he needs the rest. Keith's beginning to sway on his feet, eyes half shut.

This time Krolia speaks up. Keith doesn’t argue.

Leaving an unconscious Shiro and a concerned team behind in the Black Lion's hold, she walks Keith back to the cabin room.

Once through the door, Keith promptly collapses. He's passed out before his knees hit the floor.

Krolia catches him and sinks down to the ground with him. Not wanting to let him go, she settles down with her legs crossed and manoeuvres her son to lie against her.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, listening to his breathing even out.

She kisses him on the forehead, closes her eyes, breathes in deep.

Keith has difficulty trusting the others to hold him up and she can’t help but feel at fault for it. Keith's already forgiven her, she knows, it's just...

Perhaps she's afraid of rejection too.

 

 


End file.
